Hundreds of thousands still stranded by Kashmir floods - Economic Times

SRINAGAR: Rescuers struggled to reach more than 2,00,000 people still stranded on Saturday in Kashmir as deadly floodwaters receded, revealing horrific devastation in the region, officials said.

A smell of death hung in the air as animal carcasses lay on the roads of Kashmir's normally scenic main city of Srinagar, a top tourist draw, that one top official said had been "drowned completely" by the worst floods in over a century. "This in not a flood, this is a tsunami," Mehraj-Ud-Din Shah, Kashmir State Disaster Response Force chief, told AFP by phone from Srinagar on Saturday.

"There's a stench everywhere as animals have died and their bodies are floating around," fuelling concern about the spread of water-borne diseases, Shah said. The floods and landslides from days of heavy monsoon rains have now claimed at least 480 lives in Pakistan and India. But officials on both sides of the border said it was still too early to assess fully the extent of the disaster with many roads still impassable.

"There's no milk for children and they're crying day and night. The authorities supply us with rice but children need bread and milk," Fizza Mai, 45, a survivor at a Pakistani relief camp said. In both countries, security forces were using boats and helicopters to deliver food supplies and evacuate survivors. People waved from rooftops and upper-storey windows to attract attention.

In Kashmir, there was anger over slow rescue efforts. Some rescuers had been attacked, although now such incidents have diminished, Shah said. "My men have been beaten up, our boats have been attacked. They blame the government for not doing anything," he said.

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